I am a geek. So I spend a lot of time pouring through data and looking at analytics. Its just what I do. If you have a Facebook page for your business or brand, you should be doing this too. Thankfully this is easily done through Facebook Insights. Insights is the reporting system for all you Facebook data. It tells you how many page views you had, who is clicking, liking, sharing. You can get age and gender demographics. How many times your story appeared in the newsfeed. How viral your content is. And a lot more. There is so much information in the downloaded excel spreadsheet that you go well into the double alphabet column. You can also view a synopsis of your Insights right on Facebook from you page. The link is on the left side menu, under your profile pic.

Normally insights is behind real time by 2 days. This is not a big deal. 2 days still gives you an accurate picture of what is happening with your page. However, for the past 2 weeks insights has pretty much been down. It has provided some spotty information, but for the most part it is not actually reporting anything useful. For a data geek like me, this has been enormously frustrating.

Thankfully, despite being quiet about it for the past few weeks, Facebook has finally admitted that they are aware of the problem and are considering it high priority.

Now, usually when their is a big FAIL on Facebook it is because they are making some changes to the site. Of course, they don’t let anyone know of any potential changes so when they drop and then the site is working again, we all get to have an “A-Ha” moment.

There is a marketing conference at the end of the month, so maybe they will be announcing some big new changes coming to the site.

The Facebook timeline profile is coming out! The new profile is being released right now and will be available for all profiles within the next few weeks.

I have had the new profile since it was released to developers in September. At first I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But since using it, I have come to really like the new design. It is much more graphically oriented and fells more comprehensive, like it is giving you a more robust snapshot of the person.

The new profile is simply beautiful. It is a chronicling of your life, even before your started on Facebook. The timeline features photos and life events starting at birth. You can add information, photos, videos and posts into any time period. Have a prom photo from 20 years ago, add it in to the year 1976.

The beautiful layout, featuring photos and comments from your friends, has a deep emotional resonance. You are able to go throw the years and see your pictures. The things your friends wrote on your wall. The posts you shared and were shared with you. You not only get a glimpse of your history on Facebook, but a glimpse of your life history. It is like watching an old home movie on an old reel-to-reel.

Reminiscing has always been a social activity. Facebook has found a way to harness that.

For people using their profile to promote their business this will give additional opportunity for branding. You can have a banner photo at the top and still have your head shot for the profile pic. It will give a way to create a more graphically beautiful display for your business.

Read more about the new Facebook Timeline. To get yours you just have to wait. When it is available to you there will be a notice at the top of your old profile.

Though Facebook has been hard on the adult industry, holding us to standards that other pages don’t seem to have to abide by. Many people in the adult industry still want to have access to the 800+ million members on Facebook. One of the big challenges for pages have been reaching their audience. The best way to reach your target audience is to find, and network with, similar pages. But this has not been easy. Fan pages have finally been given a tool that will help us network with each other.

Recommendations

It use to be that you could suggest your page to your friends. It was a button at the bottom of your left nav menu. You clicked “suggest page” and you could send suggestions to all your friends. At one point this was a great way to spread the word very quickly about your page. If you were able to get someone who was influential on Twitter to suggest your page you could get literally hundreds of new fans over night! But then Facebook changed their notification system. So instead of seeing your page suggestions, they were buried in the Facebook matrix. This essentially left page suggestions completely impotent.

From that point the only way you could suggest a page was to post on your fan page and ask your friends to spread the word about you. Does this work? Yes, well sometimes. A lot of people don’t know how to “share” a post, or they are just not interested in doing PR for your fan page. Though the suggest a page is not being brought back, Facebook mainframe is now going to actually help fan pages network with each other.

When you use facebook as your page you will now see 2 rows of recommended pages. The first row are generally recommended pages, based off of other pages you like. Then below that is another set of recommendations. These show pages that your fans like. Giving you the opportunity for your page to like pages that your fans like.

This is a big boost for adult. The best way to find your fans is to engage with the pages they like. The recommendations will help us to find the pages our fans like as well as suggesting other similar pages.

Pretty soon you will notice that Facebook has a new profile. It is called the “Timeline” profile. Essentially it is showcasing your photos, comments, posts and updates from your entire time on Facebook. You can browse back to your very first days on Facebook. Though I am still concerned that it is too “me” centric, I have to admit that the layout is beautiful and that it prompted me to take a walk down memory lane.

1. The Cover

This is a giant picture at the top of your profile. It can be anything you want as kind of sets the theme to your profile. In essence this photo is supposed to be a personal expression of you. This is the first thing people see when they come to your “timeline”.

2. Views

Underneath your cover is your “views” this was previously your info section, or a hybrid thereof. This is where you’ll find your info, photos, likes, apps and other stuff all on one header bar.

3. Activity Log

This is a section that is only available to you. This is where you can edit the privacy settings on your posts and pictures, even ones previously posted. This will let you see all your activity on Facebook since the dawn of time.

4. Stories

This are shows your top stories. Your photos, updates, posts and shares from all time that are considered top news. You can view top stories from any period of time by clicking a time period on the timeline at the top right of your profile.

5. Star or Hide

You can star or hide any post at any time. If you click the star on a story it will expand it to full screen. If you click the pencil, you have the ability to hide or delete it off your profile.

6. Life Events Menu

Above the area for status updates is your life events menu. This is where you can add or edit you significant life events. You can even set up when they happened so they are properly archived in your timeline. For instance, never put in your marriage? Well, now you can add it in and add the date that you were married.

7. Info

Your info area is now much more extensive as far as your familial connections. You can add your entire family tree from aunts, uncles and cousins to in-laws!

The use of Facebook in adult entertainment is always a big question. But many people persist in using Facebook for branding purposes. So for those of you us who persist, there are some updates happening that might affect the way you use your fan page.

Facebook is removing yet another feature from Fan Pages. As of Sept 30th, you will no longer have the ability to update your fans via email. I am sure many of you didn’t even know that you could update your fans via email, well if you are just learning about this now you have about 2 more days before it is being removed.

So why is it being removed? For the exact reason why you are wondering why you have never received a page update. Well, it is likely that you have and did not know it. When Facebook updated their email service, they created their version of a spam box. It is a file on your email called “Other” this is where Facebook puts any email that it thinks is likely spam or unwanted. Of course this means any email from a fan page. They only way around emails not being filtered into this other box was to go into your email, open up a message and then move it to your “messages” box. Of course non of us ever did that. In fact, most of us never even go into the other box.

Since all fan page emails get shoved into other as soon as it is sent, Facebook has decided to remove the option entirely. Often times when a big update goes through, like Facebook email, certain things don’t function the way they were anticipated. Though Facebook wants people to use their network as a primary email address, most people are not. Very few people look at Facebook as a way to communicate with people not on the social network, and they definitely do not view it as a replacement for their primary email address. So the spam filter is under utilized and generally ignored.